After finishing up a day in surgery or in clinic, it is always a great joy to find a hand-written note from one of our patients on my desk.  This week I’ve received a couple of notes shown below — one from Alex, a 20 yo gentleman from Venice, Florida who had a fairly severe kyphosis that I straightened out for him back in May.  He is heading off to medical school next week! His note is encouraging, since as many of you know, I was inspired to be a surgeon because of my own experience as a patent as a teenager.  I was helped by an orthopedic surgeon who literally gave me my life and my leg and my ability to walk back.  I spend time each week mentoring medical and pre-med students helping them to truly consider how they should take care of the whole person, and whole family, and not just think about diagnoses, procedures, and “cases.”  

Sometimes this inspiration happens for patients like Alex as well.  Another postop teenager named Cedar, from Asheville, NC told me this week in clinic that she now wants to be a surgeon,  after I fixed her severe scoliosis a year ago…  Perhaps these 2, and maybe others will help take my place some day when I  retire.  However, God willing, I am not planning to retire anytime soon.  Like my mentor, Dr. John Hall at Boston Children’s Hospital, it would be my great joy to keep serving as a scoliosis surgeon for many years to come.  Dr. Hall finally retired at age 80, after 3 Harvard retirement dinners, and I believe his wife finally putting down the final ultimatum!  

My hope is that I can hire a few younger surgeons in the years to come, and share what I’ve learned through my experience caring for many children, adolescents and adults with spinal deformity using successful conservative treatments in the clinic, as well as surgical treatments in the operating room.   Passing on this learning and wisdom should help keep Hey Clinic going, and growing and improving for many years to come, with excellence.